Mind Games

by Hilary Norman

  She found his number.

  What if he hadn’t made the reservation at all?

  Up until that very instant, Grace had been sure that some other hotel staff member – someone less irreproachable than either Jane or Carl – had created the error here. Could it have been a deliberate – possibly predatory – male ploy?

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Lucca,’ she muttered, pulling her cellular phone out of her bag. Dr Peter Hayman was a respectable psychiatrist, researcher and writer – besides which, Grace had already visited him at his place twice, and he’d been a perfect gentleman both times.

  Leaping to absurd conclusions, Lucca.

  She made the call.

  It was only after they’d finished talking and she’d persuaded him there was no need for him to come and give the Pelican Lodge a piece of his mind, that it suddenly occurred to Grace that what might really be troubling her was how Sam might read her staying with another man for the weekend, just because he was too overloaded to see her.

  That, too, of course, was patently nonsense. Sam knew that her relationship with Hayman was a professional one, that it had been Cathy Robbins who had, inadvertently, brought them together.

  Though if it hadn’t been for Cathy, Grace reminded herself, she and Sam might not have met either.

  And, if she was entirely honest with herself, she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure if going sailing on a Sunday was exactly the standard mark of a professional relationship.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Sam came out of the interview room where he and Al Martinez had been questioning their number one suspect for over an hour. If they did have the right guy, it was only a matter of waiting for blood and DNA tests to come through before they nailed him, since the rapist had done them the favour of leaving half a textbook of damning physical evidence – semen, saliva and even blood – under one of the victim’s fingernails, more than probably corresponding to the rake marks they’d now found on their suspect’s buttocks. All of which meant that with luck and a lighter-than-usual caseload at the ME’s office, Sam and Martinez might get their bad guy charged and locked up before the entire weekend was screwed.

  ‘Sam, you got a call from Angie Carlino in Tampa.’ Mary Cutter, another detective in Person Crimes, strode along the corridor towards them.

  ‘When?’ Sam glanced at his watch, saw it was after seven p.m., two hours since they’d spoken the last time.

  ‘Just a few minutes back – said can you call her at home?’

  The door to the interview room opened and Martinez came out just as Cutter was swinging around and heading back where she’d come from. Sam noted Martinez’s eyes following her, watched as the colour in his cheeks rose a notch. Al Martinez had the reputation of being a confirmed bachelor who seldom dated or partied, but there was no doubt in Sam’s mind that since the dark-haired, petite but curvaceous detective’s arrival on the Beach, a big hole had been blown in the bachelor’s composure.

  ‘Our guy’s about to cave in, Sam,’ Martinez said as Cutter vanished.

  Sam thought about taking time out to call Angie Carlino back.

  ‘Hey, Becket,’ Martinez urged, and opened the door again.

  They went back in.

  The guy spilled his guts, but it was after eight-thirty before Sam had a chance to return the call to Tampa. Tony, Angie’s husband, didn’t sound disgruntled when he heard Sam ask for Angie, so Sam figured they probably hadn’t gotten to the new négligée part of the evening yet.

  ‘Whatcha got for me, babe?’

  ‘More of the same, mostly,’ Angie told him.

  ‘You didn’t need to waste your Saturday night on this, Angie. I told you it wasn’t urgent.’

  ‘You know me, Sam. I’m like you – something bugs me, I’m like a dog with a bone. I ran the usual checks on this Hayman guy – nothing jumped out at me, which was fine – no felonies or misdemeanours. But then I thought I’d just look him up, get his credentials, you know.’ Angie paused. ‘I found his listings for Key Largo, like you said, going back to’92, but nothing in St Petersburg – nothing before’92 any place I looked.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Not so far. Being the weekend, I couldn’t call any of the shrink-type associations, but we got listings going back ten years for St Pete and Clearwater, and there’s no Dr Peter Hayman, psychiatrist, in any of them.’

  Sam thought back to what little Grace had told him about the guy she’d met at a seminar down in the Keys. ‘I only said it might have been St Pete – I guess I could be wrong.’

  ‘So do I get to go back to Tony now?’ Angie asked, amiably.

  Sam grinned. ‘He seen your purchase yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I got two steaks ready to go first.’

  ‘Have a good night, Angie – and thanks.’

  ‘You going home now, kiddo?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. Al and I got a case to finish up on, and then I’ve got a stack of paperwork to take care of.’ Sam made a mental note to ask Grace for more details on Hayman next time they spoke.

  ‘Talk to you next week, Sam.’

  ‘Go strut your stuff for Tony, Angie babe.’

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Grace had to admit the guest suite at Peter Hayman’s house made her glad that Pelican Lodge had been full. She’d liked the look and feel of the house the first time she’d been there, but if he’d taken a hand with the decor of this room, then Hayman really had excelled himself. It was homey and laidback, with its very own piece of porch, railed off from the rest for privacy; yet the things that needed to feel crisp and clean looked and felt and smelt as if some old-fashioned personal maid had just been through the place with fresh flowers and an iron.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Hayman had said as he’d helped carry Grace’s bag into the room when she’d arrived, ‘but I’ve arranged to meet some people at my sailing club for a drink.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind.’

  ‘You’re welcome to join us,’ he’d gone on, ‘but I figure after all the aggravation at Pelican Lodge you probably could use some time by yourself.’

  He’d shown her around, told her to make the house her own, to take or use whatever she needed: the phone, the kitchen and the big old timber chest that put her in mind of the one in which the old ladies had stashed their victims in Arsenic and Old Lace, but which in this case was Hayman’s drinks cabinet, handsomely stocked with choice malt whiskies.

  ‘If you’re up for it later,’ he told Grace before he left, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of reserving a window at Atlantic’s Edge at Cheeca Lodge.’

  Grace had eaten there a couple of times over the years with Claudia and Daniel, and knew it to be perhaps the most elegant place in the Keys.

  ‘I hardly think that qualifies as a liberty,’ she said.

  She made three calls on her cellular while Hayman was out. First, she called her sister to let her know where she was in case Claudia needed her for any reason. Second, she called her own home phone to check her messages. Grace told herself she was checking in case one of her patients had had an emergency, but she knew damned well it was chiefly to find out if Sam had called again. He hadn’t, which Grace also knew damned well was because he was trying to find out who’d raped two poor women in Miami Beach, but that knowledge didn’t prevent a brief, painful flaring of the kind of disappointment that hadn’t troubled her for very many years.

  The third call was made after she’d had a long and wonderful shower, brewed a pot of excellent coffee and was sitting on her little private porch drinking it and letting the early-evening air, sweet and heavy with perfume and bird calls, wash over her. Her little mobile phone lay in her lap. Grace waited a few more minutes, then dialled Sam’s home number.

  His machine picked up and his voice directed her to leave her name, number and any message. Grace had never been psyched out by answering machines, but that particular voice had been making love to her less than forty-eight hours before, and she
guessed that might have been why the sound of it threw her.

  She put down the phone without saying a word.

  ‘Jesus, Lucca,’ she said out loud, ‘you really are regressing.’

  The evening at Cheeca Lodge was more than pleasant: crab cakes and baby snapper as good as Grace had remembered in lovely surroundings, and intelligent conversation with an attractive man. An elusive man, in some ways, she was beginning to realize. They’d reached an agreement, before sitting down at their table, not to talk about Cathy or the homicides – unless, Hayman had added, unloading some more was going to help Grace relax more fully – so the conversation tonight was on an entirely different footing than in their previous encounters. Maybe it was the fault of their profession; maybe Hayman, like Grace, was simply more accustomed to listening than speaking, but by the end of the meal she felt she barely knew more about the man than she had at the outset. She knew just a little about his psychiatric philosophy and about his long-term writing plans, and she knew that he was happier living in the Keys than he had been living any place before. But aside from the loosest of references to his years on the Gulf coast, Hayman had scarcely alluded to his past. Each time Grace had asked him a direct question, he had answered it clearly and without prevarication, but also without the slightest elaboration; thus she knew, for example, that he’d never married, but not if he’d either ever come close or had any desire to do so; she knew that he considered himself a contented man now because he felt in almost absolute control of his daily life, but she had no idea if, or why, he had felt out of control before.

  Then again, Grace told herself, none of these things were remotely her business. She was neither Peter Hayman’s psychologist nor his lover, nor was she even, strictly speaking, his friend. She was merely a colleague to whom he had been kind enough to extend an invitation that she had accepted. There was no reason for them to become close. And anyway, with every passing hour, Grace was becoming increasingly aware that the only man she wanted to get closer to was Sam Becket. Too many times during dinner, her mind skipped back to Miami and to Sam. She wondered how he was making out with his new investigation, wondered how much care he took of himself at work. Grace found that the very idea of Sam’s being in danger made her go cold. She had an urge, several times between her snapper and coffee, to go outside and try calling him again. She wanted to know he was okay, she wanted him to know that even if she was away with Peter Hayman, he was the one on her mind.

  She wanted to hear his voice.

  ‘Who’s the lucky man?’

  Hayman’s voice jarred Grace’s thoughts as they headed back to his house in a cab. They’d decided, before dinner, to enjoy a few glasses of wine without running the risks of driving.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She looked sideways at him. She could see, in the dim light of the taxi, that his brown eyes were amused.

  ‘Is it the policeman?’ he asked.

  That startled her. ‘Which policeman?’ she asked defensively.

  ‘Detective Becket,’ Hayman said, still looking amused. ‘The man you keep mentioning.’

  ‘I do?’ Grace was still surprised. She had thought, as a matter of fact, that she had been particularly careful – especially because of the confidential nature of the discussions she and Sam had shared regarding the Robbins-Flager-Dean homicides – not to talk too much about Sam.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do,’ Hayman said. ‘And I don’t think I’d be too far off the mark if I said I thought you’d been thinking about him a good deal of this evening.’

  Now Grace was embarrassed. ‘Peter, I’m sorry if it’s seemed that way. I can assure you I’ve had the loveliest time – if my mind’s been straying a little, it’s probably just because I’m not as good as I ought to be at leaving work behind.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ He raised his right index finger in mock admonishment. ‘No work talk – we agreed.’

  ‘Yes, we did. But I’m not the one who brought up the subject.’

  ‘But Samuel Becket doesn’t exactly qualify as work, surely?’ The brown eyes grew even merrier. ‘Come now, Grace, don’t be coy.’

  That irritated her. ‘Peter, can we please change the subject?’

  ‘By all means.’ He looked straight ahead. ‘We’re almost home.’

  She felt awkward from that moment on. Hayman paid the driver and they went inside, and though the subject of Sam Becket had been dropped and her host did not appear to have been offended by her reluctance to discuss her private life, the easy mood of the evening, certainly from Grace’s point-of-view, had vanished.

  ‘How about a nightcap?’ Hayman asked.

  She hesitated. ‘I think maybe I’ve had enough.’

  ‘I have a particularly fine cognac that I’ve been reluctant to open just for myself. If you had just a taste with me, you’d be doing me a favour.’

  Grace didn’t want to be rude. ‘Just a very small one.’

  They took their glasses outside on to the porch on the ocean side of the house and sat in the same comfortable rattan chairs in which they’d shared the stir-fry dinner Hayman had cooked for Grace a few weeks back.

  ‘Cognac to your liking?’ he asked after a few minutes.

  ‘Mm. Very smooth.’

  They were quiet again for a while.

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Grace,’ he said.

  It was out of nowhere, but she knew he was talking about Sam again.

  ‘You didn’t.’ She tried to sound sincere. ‘I’m sorry if I was brusque.’

  ‘You were entitled.’

  She didn’t argue.

  ‘He’s a lucky man,’ Hayman said, softly.

  Grace did her best to suppress a sigh. Clearly, he had no intention of dropping the subject.

  ‘I have to say,’ he went on, ‘that if I were in his shoes, I’d let you out of my sight as seldom as possible – and I’d certainly do anything I could to talk you out of spending weekends with another man.’

  Grace gritted her teeth. ‘I don’t think Sam Becket’s the jealous type,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘Especially when there’s nothing to be jealous of.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Hayman said. ‘Every man’s the jealous type – if he cares enough and has enough pride.’

  She wished, abruptly, that she had stayed home with Harry.

  She asked him, a few minutes later, if he’d mind if she borrowed a book for the night, and he told her, easily and pleasantly, to help herself.

  ‘Anything you want from the shelves in my study.’ Hayman paused. ‘There’s some fiction near the window – and quite a few decent biographies if that’s your poison.’

  Grace took a glass of water from the kitchen first, then went in search of the study. She thought, when he’d shown her around on her arrival, it had been the room nearest to the staircase, but the door, when she tried it, seemed to be locked.

  ‘Can I help?’

  His voice, right behind her, startled Grace. She turned around. ‘I thought this was the study.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Hayman said. ‘Study’s next door along.’

  She apologized, went on to the next room, took down a book without much ado, and came back out into the narrow corridor.

  Hayman was still standing by the locked door.

  He smiled at her. ‘Got what you need?’

  Grace nodded and held up Tom Sawyer. ‘I expect I’ll be asleep before I’ve reached page two.’ She passed Hayman on her way to the staircase.

  ‘Good night, Grace,’ he said. ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘Thank you, Peter.’ She started up. ‘See you in the morning.’

  ‘Looking forward to it,’ he said.

  When she glanced down from the top of the staircase, he was still in the same place, looking up at her.

  Chapter Forty

  SUNDAY, MAY 17, 1998

  The South Beach rapist, self-confessed and, temporarily at least, glorying in his infamy, was now safely off the streets and in the system, where Martinez and Sam could o
nly hope and pray he would remain for as long as the law allowed. Not that that did much to help the women he’d attacked and violated.

  It did mean, however, that Sam got to go home for what was left of the night. Not enough, by the time they’d gotten the paperwork squared away. It was half-past two when he got there. Much too late to call a hardworking psychologist, who was more than likely in bed and fast asleep.

  He checked his machine in case Grace had tried to reach him, knowing, of course, that there would have been no reason for her to do so, since he’d told her at lunchtime that he was going to be tied up for the whole weekend.

  The only message was from Judy, wanting to know when he was going to find time to come over and see his father. That was his mother’s new trick – she no longer had to demand that he came to visit her; all she had to do was remind him – as if he was likely to forget – about what his dad had been through and how lucky they were to still have him.

  Sam remembered telling Grace that he would try to get David over to the house of detention to visit with Cathy. He felt bad about not having gotten around to doing that yet. He didn’t like the idea of letting Grace down in any way at all.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she’d said when he’d told her he probably wouldn’t even find a spare second to make a phone call. Her voice had been so filled with warmth that he’d had an urge to drop everything and get over to her place to see her again. He still felt that way now, though the fact was that if he were able to be with her right this minute, he’d be too dog-tired to do anything more than go to sleep.